12 Days of Christmas Readings

In recent years, I have tried to develop practices that help me observe Christmas as a season of worship. Historically in the church the celebration of Christmas was not a single day, it was a season. In fact, the Christmas season lasted for 12 days (from December 25 until January 5) as it led up to the high feast day of Epiphany on January 6.

Last year, I put together for Seedbed a series of 12 excerpts from historical writings and sermons, one for each of the 12 days of Christmas, that focus on the incarnation of Jesus Christ. I have found each writing/sermon to be meaningful for devotional contemplation as well as significant to my own observance of the Christmas season.

Below are links to each of excerpts published last year by Seedbed. I invite you to join me in reading each one as part of a daily devotion and act of worship throughout the 12 days of Christmas. May the wisdom presented from these saints of the church both challenge you and bring your heart to deeper delight in God over this Christmas season. Merry Christmas!

December 25, 1st Day of Christmas: St. Augustine of Hippo from “On the Mystery of the Incarnation” 

December 26, 2nd Day of Christmas: John Chrysostom, from “Christmas Day Sermon, Antioch, 386 A.D.”

December 27, 3rd Day of Christmas: St. Athanasius, from “On the Incarnation of the Word”


December 28, 4th Day of Christmas: St. Leo the Great, from “On the Feast of the Nativity”


December 29, 5th Day of Christmas: John Donne, from “The Showing forth of Christ”

December 30, 6th Day of Christmas: Fanny Crosby, “Sing Hallelujah!”


December 31, 7th Day of Christmas: George Whitfield, from “The True Way of Keeping Christmas”


January 1, 8th Day of Christmas: Martin Luther, from “The Story of the Birth of Jesus and the Angels’ Song”


January 2, 9th Day of Christmas: Charles Wesley, “Hark, How All the Welkin Rings”


January 3, 10th Day of Christmas: St. Bridget of Sweden, from “The Revelation of St. Bridget”


January 4, 11th Day of Christmas: Gregory of Nazianzus, from “A Christmas Sermon”

January 5, 12th Day of Christmas: John Wesley, from “The More Excellent Way”